


Just Might See the Other Side

by Dan_Francisco



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Gen, Paranormal Investigators, Ruby performs an exorcism, Spooky, Supernatural (Genre), Take your girlfriend on a real date chloe, spoopy, they really do teach everything at Beacon huh, this is not what they meant when they say romance is dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27620549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: Max and Chloe, paranormal investigators, are called to a house occupied by a malevolent spirit. Their mission: uncover what sort of ghost they're dealing with so Team RWBY can banish it for good.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Kudos: 4





	Just Might See the Other Side

“Okay, this is it.”

Max looked out the window of Chloe’s truck to their latest quarry. According to Warren this house had two stories with a basement, was built in 1880, and rumors claimed that on nights like this a malevolent spirit wandered around. If it wasn’t supposedly haunted, Max wouldn’t much mind living here. Four tall pillars lined the front porch, which was less a “porch” like she knew it and more like just a pad of concrete with equally cold and unforgiving stairs to the front door. The white siding had seen better days and from what little she could see of the roof on the moonless night indicated the house as a whole must have been forgotten about for a while. Who knew what the inside looked like?

Chloe pulled her truck into the shared driveway, being sure to park off to the side just in case their investigation went a little bit longer than expected and they had to stay until morning. As she put the truck in park, the lights turned on to cast an eerie red hue over them. Max’s phone buzzed at that moment. Must have been Warren with more info.

“What’s Warren say?”

Max scrolled through the message, texting back a quick “thanks” before turning all notifications off. “He said that he thinks the ghost’s name is Oliver Gill, and it seems to respond better with multiple people around.”

“Nice. We should get some good shit out of this, then. You ready?”

“Yeah, let’s get our stuff.”

The back of the truck had their “bag of goodies” as Chloe liked to call it. An EMF reader, cameras for photo and video recording, a “spirit box” Chloe had dropped no less than a hundred dollars on, a temperature gun, and more innocuous items like a blank journal, glowsticks, flashlights and lighters made up their entire ghost-hunting kit. On instinct Max took a flashlight, the EMF reader and looped a camera around her neck while Chloe grabbed a flashlight of her own, the temperature gun and a handful of glowsticks that she shoved in her pocket.

“Let’s find ourselves some ghosts,” Chloe boasted, already making her way to the door. Max followed behind her, staring up at the second floor. A collection of square single-pane windows lined part of the wall just above the back door they were heading in through. She could have _sworn_ she saw somebody in them. Was she seeing things already?

Chloe opened the door and stepped inside first. The floor and walls were both some kind of wood, painted a medium gray with some sort of little storage cabinet off to the right. There was a handle on the other side. Maybe it was a door to a basement? Max had never seen anything like this before. Another door allowed them entry into the actual house. Just a mud room, then.

“Here we go,” Chloe said quietly, the blue light from her thermometer illuminating her face. Max turned on her EMF reader, with an expected initial reading lighting up. The door creaked open and as they passed the threshold, it felt like Max’s ears were overwhelmed with all sorts of unusual noises. Was the humming from things inside the house that were somehow still working like the heating and air, or was this the result of something else? On past hunts, she hadn’t often felt anything unusual. Cold spots, EMF activity, and strange orbs picked up on cameras were the norm but there was never any unusual ambient noise like this.

“No cold spots so far,” Chloe reported.

“We’re just in the first room,” Max said. “Let’s walk around a bit.”

This first room looked like some kind of laundry room. Max’s flashlight showed the walls were covered in some kind of wallpaper with green wood accents up to about chair height. The carpet, once white, was stained by who-knows how many years of people walking on it. An old cabinet with strange drawers and cupboards dominated the wall opposite of the door. Off to the right, Max saw an open doorway to another room with a table in it and another door which was closed. To the left was a hallway leading to who knows where.

Chloe let out a breath as she checked the corners of the laundry room with her thermometer. “Well, SuperMax? Left or right, which way first?”

“Let’s go right. We can circle back later.”

They headed into the next room which turned out to be a kitchen. Recently renovated, too. No unusual EMF readings so far and Chloe reporting no cold spots in the kitchen. As she swept her flashlight around, Max couldn’t help but notice there was a _lot_ of stuff left around. Dirty dishes still sat in the sink in a pile, while a pot was left on the stove – turned off, thankfully – and a lone cup stood on the table devoid of chairs accompanied by various magazines, pieces of mail and notes.

“Hey, I think this is the living room,” Chloe said as she walked through another threshold. There weren’t a lot of actual doors in this place, oddly enough. Most looked to have been removed a long time ago just to serve as empty doorways from room to room.

“Why’d they leave so much stuff?” Max wondered aloud.

“Dude, ghosts freak people out. Warren said this ghost was a mean motherfucker, right? I’d move too if I had _that_ hanging around rent-free.”

That made… some sense, at least. Max followed Chloe into the living room. “Wow,” she muttered. “This is huge. I hope it’s not in some corner in here.”

On the right, a bay window that faced the neighbor’s house framed a dinner table. Chairs were in different stances, like not all of them had been occupied before whoever last lived here got out of dodge. On the left, there was a large wooden desk with a computer on it long since turned off. Nearer to the end, where three tall windows lined the wall towards the street, two couches angled off each other to give everyone a chance to see one of the biggest TVs Max had ever seen outside of a Best Buy.

Chloe whistled as she neared the TV. “Damn. Who’d leave this behind? Anything on the EMF?”

“Nothing weird.” She took another look around. Behind the couches was a fireplace flanked on both sides by built-in bookshelves that she could tell were full, but couldn’t divulge the contents from as her flashlight’s glare made the titles illegible.

“Yeah, nothing on the temp gun either. Want to check this room out?”

Chloe gestured to a door halfway between the computer and TV, which was already open. Looked like a bedroom. There was a lot of artwork on the walls, a smaller TV positioned on a dresser, and what looked like a sewing table tucked in the corner.

“Oh, shit,” Chloe muttered, pointing her flashlight above the bed. “Check that out.”

Max looked up to see a small cross that the previous owners had put above their bed was turned upside down. “That’s… that’s not good.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Jesus is supposed to go that way.”

Low beep. Max looked down to see her reader had registered an EMF level 2. That could have meant either in this room, above, or below them. Chloe glanced over and then checked her thermometer before shaking her head. There was another door-less entrance right next to the bed. Max headed over and glanced down the hallway to see that it led back to the laundry room. So that must be how it all connected, then.

“Okay, I think the first floor’s kind of a bust,” Chloe said. “Want to go upstairs?”

“Yeah. Basement for last?”

Max nodded as she walked out of the room and towards the front of the house. “Yeah, may as well.”

They moved into the foyer which had the only staircase leading up. The stairs themselves were fairly standard until abruptly curving near the top. A long hallway went along the house lengthwise, with doors on nearly each side. Max decided to go into the first room on the left which faced the front of the house while Chloe opened up what looked like a closet door.

“Ladder,” Chloe remarked. “Huh. Guess it goes to the attic.”

“I really hope we don’t have to go up there,” Max said. The last time they had investigated a house with an attic they had found a poltergeist that used everything in its environment against them, including but definitely not limited to cans of paint, boxes full of books, and planks of scrap wood. Max had barely gotten out unscathed and the cuts on Chloe’s arms still hadn’t fully healed up.

Chloe shrugged before heading into the left room with Max. “It’d be pretty hard to get our stuff up here anyway,” she conceded. “Huh, lower temperatures up here.”

“Nothing on the EMF,” Max said.

The new room, which Max dubbed the “green room” due to a dark green paint on every wall, was full of windows with sheer curtains that stretched well beyond the window frames to just barely touch the floor. No less than three bookshelves were stuffed between the windows, while a couch sat nestled in the corner with an ottoman next to it. A rug provided a centerpiece for the room but otherwise it just felt strangely hollow.

With each step Max took the floor creaked. It had done this all downstairs too and walking up the stairs felt like playing stock sound effects on loop. Nothing seemed out of place and Chloe reported no unusually low temperatures. If they were looking for any sort of spirit they’d need anything below 32F, but their thermometer only dipped to about 40. For a moment, she and Chloe both stopped to take in the room and make sure they had cleared it. Max’s dozens of hunts told her that sometimes ghosts just took a while to start being active.

A heavy footstep echoed from down the hall. Not multiple, but just one single step that sounded suspiciously like a boot hitting wood floors.

“Did you hear that?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah, where do you think it came from?”

Chloe’s eyebrows jumped up and she shook her head. “Let’s find out.”

They left the room and headed back into the hallway. The attic entrance was quickly ruled out, and both of the side rooms were too close for what the footstep sounded like. The end of the hall opened to another open room, bare save for more bookshelves and two opened doors into unknown rooms. A single window gave Max a mere glimpse of Chloe’s truck out back.

“How many fucking books do these people have?” Chloe wondered aloud, walking into the middle of the room. “Okay, I’m pretty sure it’s not the bathroom. What about this room?”

Max followed Chloe to the far door which led into a room that looked like some sort of half-finished kitchen. It looked almost like a mirror of the downstairs kitchen, save for being clearly mid-80s in style and featuring an island. The lack of a refrigerator and stove also set the two rooms apart. Windows lined the wall towards the parking area and a smaller one sat above the sink.

Her EMF reader beeped with a low, steady tone. “Level 4,” she announced even though she knew Chloe could see it.

“20 degrees,” Chloe said. “Hell yeah. Hey, I’m getting the video camera and that journal, be right back okay?”

 _Oh hell no_ , she wasn’t about to stick around in here with a ghost. “I’m going with you. We should get the spirit box anyway.” Max could already feel bad energy surrounding this room. Even if they hadn’t found a high EMF reading or low temperatures that room just felt _off_ to her.

Leaving the house, even temporarily, made her feel better. It was like the ghost was oppressing everything in the building and making it hard to even _breathe._ Alas, time was short. They needed to confirm what this thing was and get out before it decided to start hunting. Too much time and they risked being killed, and then _they_ would become spirits wandering in the empty house alone.

At least, that’s what Warren and Ruby always said.

They didn’t have to bring up too much into the “ghost room” but setting everything up still took some time. For one, the camera’s tripod had to be set up and the camera also needed night vision turned on, as well as angled to have a good line of sight on their other equipment like the EMF reader Max put on the kitchen island and the journal. With luck, they’d have this all figured out within twenty minutes and they could get out quick and cleanly.

“Okay, want to start with the spirit box?” Chloe asked.

“Sure,” Max said. She still wasn’t sure this thing actually worked, but it was better than nothing. Right now all they had was freezing temperatures and that just wasn’t enough. It still left the door open for a lot of possible ghost types.

Chloe set the spirit box on the floor and turned it on. The noise it made from scanning radio channels so frequently made it hard to hear much of anything, like the radio waves themselves were bouncing off the walls and into Max’s head. “Are you here?” Chloe asked as loud as she could.

Nothing. Chloe waited a few more minutes before trying again. “Do you want us here?” Another minute passed with nothing. “Okay, uh, am I talking to Oliver Gill?” Still nothing. Chloe turned the box off, clearly frustrated.

“Hey, it doesn’t always work,” Max said in an attempt to reassure her.

“I know, I know. I’m just-” Chloe was interrupted by the EMF reader going off, this time rocketing up to level 5 almost immediately. “Whoa, hey, check that out.”

Max and Chloe stood up at the same time, going over to the reader. That confirmed it, and also narrowed down the range of possibilities. “Okay, so that’s… either a phantom or a banshee,” Max said. Chills ran down her spine, even more than before with the cold room. An immense feeling of doom washed over her in an instant as she looked over at Chloe.

She was horrified when she realize somebody was standing right behind her. The ghost’s mouth began to produce a horrific groaning noise. Max’s heart sounded like it was right in her head pounding away louder than any drum as she struggled to find words. Oliver Gill himself had just appeared in front of them, his face heavily disfigured and horrifying to even glance at, dressed in late Victorian-era clothes that were bloodstained and tattered. Even though he had appeared, there was still an otherwordly look to him that made him partially see-through.

“Max,” Chloe said quietly as the spirit’s mouth slowly opened. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

“Y-yes.”

Chloe visibly gulped. “T-take a picture, Max.”

With shaky hands, Max raised the camera up to her eyes, looking through the viewfinder until she had framed the picture right. A snap later, and they had at least photo evidence of the spirit. Somehow Max was freezing and sweating at the same time.

“Fucking run!” Chloe yelled, breaking into a sprint just as Oliver began to raise his hands. Max didn’t even bother to pick up anything they had left in the room. All that mattered was getting out as soon as possible. Their footsteps echoed but Oliver’s footsteps practically sounded like gunshots behind them. With a clatter, they bolted down the stairs towards the front door. If they could just get out, they could make it back to the truck.

Chloe grabbed the doorknob just as Max’s flashlight began to flicker. Oliver was getting closer. She twisted and turned the doorknob every which way and tried to pull, but found nothing. Pushing yielded no results either. “Fuck!” Chloe shouted. “He fucking locked us in!”

“The back door!” Max said, pushing through the French doors into the living room. The footsteps continued to menace them even as they raced to the back. Max reached the door first and tried to open it, but this too was locked.

“ _Come the fuck on!_ ” Chloe yelled.

“We’ve got to hide,” Max said. “Find somewhere!”

Chloe nodded and grabbed Max’s shoulder. “Hey, be safe, alright? I’m not losing you tonight.”

“You too,” Max said.

The two broke off. Max headed to the basement door and shut herself in the staircase leading down. Chloe ran off towards the bedroom, probably to find a closet or hide in the bathroom. The entire time, Oliver’s heavy footsteps banged and boomed throughout the house. He walked past Max’s door, temporarily pausing in front of it much to her chagrin.

What if he could see her through the door and was just toying with her? She’d known spirits to do that before. Locking doors on floors they weren’t even on was new, though. Max tried every tool she had to keep her breathing steady and calm so as not to betray her position. Part of her feared that her beating heart would alert the ghost, and in true horror movie fashion he’d reach through the door and snap her neck.

After what felt like an eternity, Oliver stepped away. His steps began to fade out until they just stopped completely. Max waited for a few more minutes just to make sure he had actually left. Spirits would do _that_ sometimes too, make Max and Chloe believe they were safe and then begin their hunt all over again. Slowly, Max opened the door and looked around. For whatever reason, Oliver had decided to turn the lights on. She didn’t know the power was even still working here.

“Max?” Chloe called out from the bedroom. “Max, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good!”

The two reunited back at the door and shared a quick hug before leaving for good. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Chloe muttered.

The second Max got back in the truck and Chloe started it up, Max checked the camera. Oliver himself didn’t appear behind Chloe, but there was a large orb clear as day that she knew was not there when the picture was taken. Well, that’s enough to confirm it. They had officially survived an encounter with a phantom.

“I’m gonna text Ruby and the team,” Max said. God, her voice was shaky even now. “They’re dealing with a phantom.”

“Christ,” Chloe said as they pulled out of the area. “Well, on to the next one I guess.”

Max’s entire body felt like it just unwound, as if the pressure and anxiety of being locked in that house with the ghost was lifted off her shoulders. _On to the next one._


End file.
